This specification relates to three dimensional (3D) modeling programs and rendering of 3D scenes for construction field management operations, including generating 3D scenes with a time element for display.
Current technology allows for camera changing views within 3D scenes. A good example of this is a simple animation in a city or STREET VIEW® online software, available from Google Inc. of Mountain View, Calif., which displays geographic information, interactive geographic maps, and images of maps and mapped locations. The view is based upon fixed architecture, or in the case of some created 3D scenes, the imagination of whoever created the scene. For many visualizations, there exists no current scene, such as because a building or street has changed, been destroyed or has been significantly upgraded.
In addition, in the context of building information management systems, various visualization and information delivery techniques have been used. For example, U.S. Patent Application No. 2010/0077316 describes methods and systems for inspecting and managing information in a collaborative construction project, U.S. Pat. No. 8,732,125 describes systems and methods for construction field management and operations with building information modeling, and U.S. Pat. No. 8,878,840 describes devices and methods for displaying a sub-section of a virtual model. All three of the patent documents (U.S. Patent Application No. 2010/0077316; U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,732,125; and 8,878,840) are hereby incorporated by reference.